In some ways, all 8 remaining BIG12 schools should stick together. If PAC expansion is not an option, the BIG 12 needs 4 more programs - the best they can find, and continue on. WHY would the BIG12 not retain its "P5" status with additional members? I don't get that. The only good team leaving is OU. They have been dominating the conference similarly to how Clemson has been dominating the ACC. UT SUCKS. They haven't done squat since we have been there and we own their ass. I bet there are better teams from other conferences that would be more challenging than the Whorns. So why can't the BIG12 survive with the right 4 extra teams? Seems the best option to me.
I don't necessarily disagree but it won't happen. I think what happened tonight will tell us a lot over the next couple of days.
This was a busy day with some key things starting to happen that are beginning to make things appear to maybe/potentially/could be starting to take shape:
1) The Big 12 sends Cease and Desist letter to ESPN for working with a couple of conferences allegedly to break up the remainder of the Big 12.
2) We find that one of the deals that ESPN was working on was helping the AAC pick off 5 remaining Big 12 teams. How do we know? Because almost immediately after the C/D letter went out, a Manhattan KS reporter writes a scoop about it. He has all the details except which 5 schools were targeted (and his full written scoop which *had* to have been written before all the news came public because of he detail it had in it came out well before any tweets from the DMN, Chronicle
3) From reading various articles/message boards, the prevailing thought is that one of those 5 schools was KSU. The rationale is that KSU is the one who leaked the whole plan to the Big 12 office, and the thought behind that is that they do NOT want to go to the AAC (If they did, they would have most likely been quiet and let everything play out).
4) The next prevailing thought is that ESPN is doing this because they want the Big 12 to fully break up so OU and UT can move to the SEC sooner rather than later.
5) The fact that the letter refers to another conference would suggest that the other 3 schools not included in the AAC proposal would be headed to either the Pac-12 or ACC. The ACC is an ESPN conference and the Pac-12 is not. However, ESPN could still broker a deal based on new or future contracts.
6) The prevailing thought is that the 5 teams in the AAC deal would be the relative "have-nots" out of the remaining Big 12 schools, and the 3 that are NOT part of the AAC would be the "haves" that would move on to another (at least for now) P5 league.
There you have it, cobbled together with all sorts of non-facts, observations, opinions, and a handful of facts that came out of Manhattan KS. Obviously KSU doesn't like which bucket it's in and is trying to do something to avoid allowing it to happen. Once we know who their 4 stablemates are we just might have a very clear picture of where things are headed.